“We showed thosemist wraiths, eh, Somerled?”
The fox’s golden eyes glittered.
“Banished them with a mere wriggle of my fingers, we did!”
Chortling still, the crone demonstrated. Her bright eyes full of merriment, she thrust her hand into the cauldron’s steam and twitched her fingers, causing the drifts of steam to shift and waver.
“Mist wraiths — fie!” She withdrew her hand. “Let them try to rise again. Perhaps next time I shall tie them all in knots!”
She nodded to herself, very much liking the idea, but set the possibility aside for the moment.
Other chores and duties beckoned.
Stooping to the side, she plunged her hands into a large wicker creel, retrieving a handful of plump, waiting-to-be-smoked herring.
A gift from Sir Marmaduke Strongbow and his lady wife, Caterine, but originally from Glenelg’s joy woman, Gunna of the Glen, the prized fish needed to be hung one by one to a taut-stretched drying rope she’d affixed across the modest breadth of her cottage.
With a practiced eye, Devorgilla set about her task, making sure the choicest specimens were placed just above her e’ er-burning peat fire.
Herring thus cured would be carefully guarded. Each one stashed away as delicacies of great worth, only produced when guests of particularly high standing came to call.
“Noble folk the like of the Black Stag’s daughter and her raven,” she announced, slanting a proud glance at Somerled as she fastened another fine and weighty herring to the string above her fire. “They’ll no doubt wish to thank me, sail to Doon bearing gifts and oblations . . .”
She let the words tail off, preferring to glory in how easily she’d banished the mist snakes.
How one stern look and a mere wriggle of her knotty-knuckled fingers had sent the foul slithering creatures scurrying back to the hell whence they’d come.
“O-o-oh, aye, Somerled,” she skirled, snatching up another fat and glistening herring to hang in the cloud of steam gathering above her cauldron, “the flow of the tides and the currents aren’t strong enough to hinder Devorgilla of Doon’s powers!”
“Fool woman!”
The powerful voice came from within the cauldron steam.
“Gaaaaa!” Devorgilla jumped.
The fish went flying from her fingers.
“Cease meddling with matters beyond your ken!” A towering dark-robed figure glowered at her from the swirling vapor.
Glaring fiercely, he scowled down his long nose, his white-maned hair whipping in an unseen wind as he raised an arm and shook a great, silver-glowing staff.
Devorgilla lurched backward, toppling the herring creel.
Somewhere behind her, Mab hissed and Somerled barked.
The figure waved his staff more vigorously. A shower of blindingly brilliant silver-blue sparks and spangles sprayed everywhere, lighting the cottage as if it were noontide on a bright midsummer’s day.
“Be warned, woman!” The figure’s eyes fixed on her, penetrating. “Try such foolery again and I’ll do more than just frighten you!”
“Frighten me? Devorgilla of Doon?” Some sliver of her earlier pride made her shake out her black skirts. She jutted a somewhat bristly chin. “Be that the style of you, then? Preying on old, helpless women?”
Somerled bumped her leg, lending support.
For a moment, the figure looked almost nonplussed.
But then his frown returned and he aimed his staff at the spilled herring. Speaking a spell darker and more ancient than any of her own, he touched the end of the walking stick to the toppled creel, turning it and the precious fish into a charred clump of smoking black goo.
Somerled’s brush shot straight upward, his snarl protective.
